Cody: How are we to live with the things we are facing day to day? Look to him and his example, and then also trust in him knowing that whatever it is we are trapped in or feel like we can't let a hold of, he has already bought our freedom from it through his blood.
Caleb: The following message was recorded at Kingstree Church. May the spirit use it to help you see, savor, and sing the beauty of God in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.
Cody: If you could open up with me to Hebrews 12 verse one, we'll open up there. Good morning, everyone, and it's just an honor and privilege to be able to teach you this morning, especially on Palm Sunday. We're going through one of my personal favorite passages of scripture that's helped me when I'm wrestled with sin or struggled with something in my life. It helps re center me towards Christ. That's important for today, Palm Sunday, where you have Jesus going into Jerusalem, the crowd crying out to him, and he's compassionate on them, but has his eyes fixed on that which is eternal.
So if you could, I'll read Hebrews 12 verses one and two and open us in prayer. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Father, we just thank you so much that we can come into your word today. We thank you for the sending of Jesus. We thank you.
We thank you for who you are, and we just pray for your blessing on this time. Give us ears to hear and give me the words to speak accurately what your word says, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray. Okay. So we open up, and this is an awkward passage to kinda jump into because it opens up with the word therefore.
And that's like jumping in halfway to a sentence almost. Therefore is a logical connector. You can kind of think of it like a glue. Right? It usually holds two ideas or in the notes I have it down as like a premise together.
Right? The initial premise that we're starting out with that therefore is referencing is actually Hebrews 11 as a whole. Now I'm not going to read through the whole chapter to you, but just some key highlights is in verse one, it says, Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. And then when it goes, it goes through what a lot of people call the hall of faith. And you have just these great people like Abraham, Moses, Rahab, David, and on and on and on who lived out their faith through obedience.
You have Abraham who was prepared to sacrifice Isaac, and believing in the promise of God that a multitude of nations would come through, Isaac knew God would raise Isaac from the dead if that sacrifice came to pass, which we know God intervened. You have Moses who gave up living in Pharaoh's palace in a life of luxury to instead live a life of sacrifice, suffering with God's people, knowing the promise of God to save his people. And then you have Rahab, who off the promise that Israel would be conquering the city of Jericho, hid the spies at the risk of her own life to the government officials. And all of them acted by faith. Hebrews 11 ends on a sad note though.
If you go to the end of the chapter with me in verses 39 to 40, it says, And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us, they should not be made perfect. Right? So what do we have that they don't? We have Jesus and the new covenant. They were operating under the old covenant, which Hebrews eight:five and ten:one, we won't flip there now, but they're for reference, calls a shadow of the picture of the goodness of the things to come, which is Christ.
Right? They acted out their faith operating off shadows while we see the sun. Therefore, and then it almost to reemphasize it, it transfers into this, since we are surrounded by so great, a cloud of witnesses. The cloud of witnesses being these saints from Hebrews 11, these people who've the Abraham, Moses, forerunners. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, and them being the witnesses.
Now why it uses the word cloud isn't as clear. Right? We may call a group of people a crowd, a mob if they're in a bad mood, but not a cloud typically. Right? We don't have any direct clear answer like we do with what faith is, but we have parts like Hebrews thirteen:seven, where it says, Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God.
Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Right? So a cloud, physically, you have to look up to see a cloud, so maybe it's the idea of we're looking up to these people who came before us. Or maybe it has to do with the fact that clouds produce rain. In Hebrews six:seven-eight, there's a warning on receiving just being in the community of God and not bearing fruit.
For land that has drunk the rain that often falls on it and produces a crop useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed and its end is to be burned. And again, in the book of Hebrews, what kind of cloud imagery is he pulling off of? We don't have a clear answer, but we can imitate them and we can learn from them. There's much to gain, but we have more than they do.
And since we have more than they do, what is our call? We are called to cast aside let us also lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely and run with endurance the race that is set before us. Sin is pretty black and white, straightforward. It's things I put a reference in the note for where Jesus lists a lot of things that's not exhaustive, but theft, murder, adultery, coveting, deception, envy, pride, bitterness, the list goes on and on. Christopher gave an excellent sermon a few weeks ago on that, is the idea of sin is anything turning against God and His will, walking in disobedience.
For me, when I read this verse first, and where it's stuck with me over time, is laying aside every weight, And what does it mean by weights in our lives that we are to cast off? In first Corinthians 10 verses 23 to 24, it says just a minute. All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful, but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor.
So there are things in our lives that, yes, we can do them. They're not sinful, but they're not doing any good for building us up. Some just broad strokes. Right? Yes.
You can watch movies. Yes. You can play video games. Yes. You can read fiction.
Yes. You can have a Facebook or a TikTok and so on and so forth. Broadly speaking, I'm sure there are specific instances we can think of where those things would be sinful, but broadly speaking, we can do these things. Specifically though, are these things that are building you up in your life? Are these things that are allowing you to serve other people better or grow in Christ likeness, or are they weighing you down?
Much like a runner having rocks in his pocket would be slowed down. That is what this call is of laying aside weights and sins. For a personal example where I went through this just a few years ago is when we first started working on the youth ministry here, how it would work, is we would meet and then we'd usually do board games or something like that after. We do about an hour of study, hour of board games. When we started getting into it though, I was researching board games all the time, just trying to find the perfect game.
I watched YouTube videos, listened to podcasts, read articles, and it was just consuming so much of my time that I was losing sight of what mattered. And when I went to my wife to ask to buy another board game for youth, she reminded me very clearly that we had a nursery that was incomplete, and that was more pressing. These are the things that are And this isn't to say that you can't look up board games or learn about board games. This is more to say that these things are distractions, right? And not that board games are distractions.
I don't want to add extra. But for me personally, I play them, but I don't research it anymore because it's a stumbling block and it takes away from me being able to serve my family. My question for you is what are the things in your life that are taking away from your ability to love others and serve others and grow in Christ likeness? That is the weight in sin we should be looking for. And what are we to do with this then?
It's also a communal call. This is where community is so important. In my case, was my wife correcting me, but if we go to Hebrews three verse 13, but exhort one another every day as long as it is called today, but none of you may be hard that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. We are called to exhort one another. We are called to hold each other accountable, to help each other with these struggles, these weights and sins, and then to run with endurance.
First Corinthians nine verses 24 to 27, the apostle Paul says, do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly.
I do not box as one beating the air, but I discipline my body and keep it under control. Lest after preaching to others, I myself should be disqualified. There are athletes today who are spending millions of dollars counting every calorie they consume, every calorie they burn in their workouts to get trophies that ten years from now none of us will remember that they got them, or most of us won't for that. It's like, how much more should we be running for that which is eternal, That which lasts forever and has consequence. That's the call here.
But then it makes a shift. Hebrews 12 makes just this awesome shift, because it's not like a white knuckle hold on, I better not sin anymore type thing. We're called instead to look to Jesus. How do we run with endurance? How do we cast aside our sins and the weights and the things like that?
Look to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who with the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. And here we see two characteristics of Jesus given just in these verses alone. He's the founder of our faith. We are Christians. We tiny Christs.
We would not be called so if it wasn't for his death, burial, and resurrection, and believing in who he says he is. That he founded the faith. If we go to Hebrews two verse 10, it says, for it was fitting that he for whom and by whom all things exist and bringing many sons to glory should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. It's not just our faith, it's our salvation, it's our eternity. He did that through suffering, and he suffered on the cross for us and for our sin.
That's where this founder of our faith piece comes in. And then perfecter in the fact that he did it without sin himself. He bore the weights we couldn't in a way we could never execute on. If we go to Hebrews four fifteen. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
This is Jesus. This is the Jesus, the one who made all of creation, but then came into it and did what we couldn't do to bear the wrath we deserve, and then rose three days later to prove he was who he says he is. That is our God. That is our Lord and our God, and that's who we are to turn to, not in our own strength and our own ability. Why did he do it?
We get an answer to that why at the end of verse two. Who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Know, if we go to He had the joy of saving us. If we go to Hebrew But there's a joy in heaven as well. Philippians two verses five to 11, just capture this very well.
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men, and being found in human form. He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the father. So when it says here back in verse 12 that he endured the cross and despised the shame, the word for despise there isn't like this angry hatred, he's so mad he has to do this. The word is more like he thought so little of.
He looked down upon it and was willing to suffer it for our sake. It's not this intense hatred. It's more I lack the words for it. And the shame though is think of this too, is he's crucified. God, this without sin, crucified with criminals, some of the worst criminals of the time in the period, facing an execution that was reserved for the most radical of criminals.
And he did it naked, hung out right outside the entrance and exit to Jerusalem for many, many people to see. And he did that for us. He did that in love for us. Hebrews one verse three, He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. And he upholds the universe by the word of his power.
After making purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. And so, how do we apply these truths then? Knowing this call we have, and who our savior is, and who to turn to, how do we apply this? One great way I think is just accountability, and people to meet with, and having church community. People to talk to about sins and weights we are struggling with, to hold each other accountable and to point each other to scripture again with this.
I find myself personally, it's very handy to find a verse with whatever I'm wrestling with and memorize that and just bring that to mind every time I'm tempted in that area. Another thing that I think is just universal for this though is just this call to turn to Jesus. It sounds very broad, but it can be as simple as just praying to him saying, God, I don't want to do this anymore. Please save me. Please help me.
And he will hear that prayer. He will answer that prayer. When we say turn to Jesus or look to Jesus, it sounds so broad, and that's a specific way to do it, is going to His Word, talking to His people and praying to Him and crying out to Him, and he will hear and honor those. His word promises it. Coming back to Palm Sunday, if we go back and we think Jesus going into Jerusalem, crowd around him, they're crying out to him, they're ready to make him king, and he doesn't say, Okay, take your swords, let's go to the governor's palace and overthrow this place.
He receives it, goes into the city, and he goes to the temple, And then he leaves the city again in the Gospel of Mark. He leaves the city again to go back to Bethany. Then fast forward a few days, the Gospel of John tells us he's in the Garden Of Gethsemane, and he's there praying, crying out to God, looking for another way than the cross, but submits himself to God. The mob comes to arrest him and he says his name in the Gospel of John twice and they fall down before him. Yet still he hands himself over to be arrested by them.
Then, a little bit further, he's in the court of Pontius Pilate, who Pontius Pilate reminds him saying that Pontius has authority to crucify him. Jesus looks at Pontius and says, You would have no authority if not had been given to you by my father. Right? In all of these circumstances, Jesus makes clear he's in full control of the circumstance, but still chooses the cross to save us. And so then how are we to live with the things we are facing day to day?
Look to him and his example, and then also trust in him knowing that whatever it is we are trapped in or feel like we can't let ahold of, he has already bought our freedom from it through his blood. If you would pray with me. Father, we just we thank you for the salvation we have through Christ. We thank you for your love and for your mercy, and that we can be freed from all sin. We thank you We thank you for this church, and we just praise and bless your name, Lord.
In Jesus' name, amen. Thank
Caleb: you for listening to this message from Kingstree Church in Sabina, Ohio. To see more of the beauty of God and the crucified and risen Jesus Christ, come worship with us on Sundays at 10AM or visit our website at kingstreechurch.org.